Although some called Apple’s third generation iPad a relatively “modest” update to its popular predecessor, sales for its opening weekend were through the roof. Apple announced this afternoon that 3 million iPads since have been sold since it was officially launched on Friday morning.

“The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold?the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple SVP of Worldwide Marketing. “Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can't wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday.”

To put those numbers into perspective, Samsung -- third place in tablet sales behind Apple and Amazon -- shipped a mere 1.5 million Android-based tablets during all of Q4 2011 according to IDC.

MS-DOS copied CP/M, Word copied Word Perfect, Windows copied MacOS, the XBox followed in the steps of the Playstation, the Zune followed in the steps of the iPod (and only a month later the iPhone was announced). There is no question that where Microsoft excels is marketing and breaking into already established markets.

I find it very frustrating that they sink so much money and incredible talent into Microsoft Research, and yet the leadership at Microsoft can't turn what comes out of there into market defining products. Can you imagine if they could actually harness all that brainpower as well as Apple or Google does with their own considerably smaller R&D budgets?

Note that I didn't say that Microsoft made bad products. I think Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7 are excellent. I think Metro on mobile devices in particular is one of the most innovative things to come out of Microsoft in a very long time (on the desktop is another matter). At one point you made fun of how much I evangelize Windows Phone 7. So which is it, am I a fanboy or a hater?

Microsoft just has a decades long history where they see where others are succeeding in the market and create very late me-too products that are often inferior until their second or third iteration. Until then they stay well within their comfort zone.

As for Gates having "no vision", I don't completely believe that. He most definitely has vision in terms of his philanthropy and particularly his vision to eradicate disease. What he is doing with his foundation can be cynically seen as a tax dodge for his massive fortune, but how he is planning on applying it, particularly where it comes to disease, tells me otherwise.

That to me is far more significant and has more original foresight than what he did as a businessman.

No, I find that having a vision for eradicating disease is far more impressive than finding ways to foist an inferior operating system to market dominance in the 90s through force as he did with IBM, Compaq, Dell, etc etc. The former is pure business backstabbery where the product/technology is secondary, the other is a real vision for the future.

Windows in the 90s and the early 2000s, when Microsoft established its dominance and monopoly, was inferior to some of the alternatives out there, yes. Pretty much everything before Vista/7.

I used nothing but Microsoft operating systems from the late 80s with MS-DOS, but in college even I could accept that my friend's Amiga and Macintosh were way ahead of what I had running on my 486. And while the NeXT platform was far too expensive for me to get my hands on, it was literally a decade ahead of its time. You should watch videos of a NeXTCUBE in action, it is insane that this sort of OS existed in the early 90s. When I say it was a decade ahead of its time, I mean it; Windows was behind in many ways until Vista, and Windows 3.1/95/98 and MacOS that were out at the same time were all a complete joke in comparison.

You seem to have some sort of inferiority complex. I was a Windows 3.1 user back in 1992, but even I can accept that there were multiple better operating systems out at the time. You on the other hand can't accept that anything outside of what you yourself have purchased is any good at all. The same applies in your political threads. Very closed minded.

Ah and the whole "copied" argument is something only Apple trolls have been using for 30 years now. It wasn't right then, and it's not right now. Nice try, get new material.

quote: the XBox followed in the steps of the Playstation

Uhhh Sony didn't invent the game console. Ever heard of Atari? By this logic 90% of all advancements or inventions ever made by mankind aren't legitimate because they were "copied" from basic concepts spanning anywhere from hundreds and dozens of years ago.

quote: Zune followed in the steps of the iPod

Wtf? Since when was the iPod the first MP3 player? Hate to burst your bubble, but the iPod was a complete copy of the Cowon iAudio. Apple even tried to claim the "i" prefix was "stolen" from them, even though it went to the market a full YEAR before the iPod. Sad that as far back as year 2000 Apple started becoming a bullying trollish cry baby.

quote: Windows copied MacOS

AHAHAHA, how hard you people still try and cling to that. Hold on, Xerox is calling me, they have something to say about this...

I'm pretty sure Gate's legacy is safe, no matter what lies you spread or how biased your opinions are. Calling him not an idea guy and that he lacked vision is really just insane talk. Insane!

“When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about software,” recalls Gates. “We had dreams about the impact it could have. We talked about a computer on every desk and in every home. It’s been amazing to see so much of that dream become a reality and touch so many lives.

We have a PC in nearly every home today, because of Bill Gates. We have a unified experience, today, because of Bill Gates. This is NOT the result of someone who "lacks vision".

quote: As for Apple not doing much right before 2007, here is a letter

A letter? We have something called history. Before 2007 Apple was a failed proprietary PC company who never amounted to anything more than a fad. Who never gained traction in the business sector. And who couldn't manage a historical market share greater than like...ohhh I'll be generous, 10% of the PC market. They traded in their vision for computers running Intel and they even had to go so far as to allow Windows, of all things, to boot on them. No wonder they went in this new direction of portability. Whatever they were doing clearly was not working and never was.

iTunes iPod iPhone iPad. Remove them tomorrow and it wouldn't make a difference. No Bill Gates? We might as well be cavemen smashing rocks together.

You miss the point. Microsoft historically doesn't enter markets until they have been proven to work beyond a shadow of a doubt by other companies. There is a difference between iterating on prior concepts and waiting conservatively until it is "safe" to dip into the pool. Microsoft is historically a very safe company (Sinofsky is certainly bucking the trend by forcing Metro into Windows for desktops, very ballsy move).

quote: Sony didn't invent the game console. Ever heard of Atari?

Again, MS jumped in when they saw that Sony was making a bankload on the Playstation, more than anyone thought possible at the time. It isn't about who did it first, it is about not moving until someone else has proven that there is a huge market out there.

This is different from pioneering new markets. Creating a market is something that MS doesn't do, they leave that for other companies and then they swoop in.

quote: Since when was the iPod the first MP3 player?

It wasn't, but it showed that the market for media players done properly was much larger than anyone anticipated, hence Microsoft's eventual entry. This entry was of course late given that Apple was already finished with the PMP and moving onto smartphones.

Again, this is all about Microsoft's inherent conservatism and lack of vision. They have very talented engineers and researchers there, and whatever deficiencies MS has as a company can be blamed at the people at the top.

quote: AHAHAHA, how hard you people still try and cling to that. Hold on, Xerox is calling me, they have something to say about this...

The Xerox Star, released three years before the Mac, has so little to do with MacOS (and consequently Windows) that it isn't even funny. Watch this and tell me that this has anything to do with how GUIs operate today: http://youtu.be/Cn4vC80Pv6Q

quote: Smalltalk has no Finder, and no need for one, really. Drag-and- drop file manipulation came from the Mac group, along with many other unique concepts: resources and dual-fork files for storing layout and international information apart from code; definition procedures; drag-and-drop system extension and configuration; types and creators for files; direct manipulation editing of document, disk, and application names; redundant typed data for the clipboard; multiple views of the file system; desk accessories; and control panels, among others. The Lisa group invented some fundamental concepts as well: pull down menus, the imaging and windowing models based on QuickDraw, the clipboard, and cleanly internationalizable software.

...

As you may be gathering, the difference between the Xerox system architectures and Macintosh architecture is huge; much bigger than the difference between the Mac and Windows. It's not surprising, since Microsoft saw quite a bit of the Macintosh design (API's,sample code, etc.) during the Mac's development from 1981 to 1984; the intention was to help them write applications for the Mac, and it also gave their system designers a template from which to design Windows. In contrast, the Mac and Lisa designers had to invent their own architectures. Of course, there were some ex- Xerox people in the Lisa and Mac groups, but the design point for these machines was so different that we didn't leverage our knowledge of the Xerox systems as much as some people think.

Dragging and dropping files into folders (or folders into other folders) to move them, pull down menus, window behavior, clipboard behavior, control panels, these are all UI standards that we are still using almost thirty years later, and those standards came from MacOS, not Smalltalk or the Star. Apple took the basic idea of a visual interface and made it streamlined enough for anyone to use. To make things even more clear, Windows didn't reach parity with the 1984 MacOS for an additional six years with the release of Windows 3.0.

Cavemen banging rocks together? It'd have happened anyway with or without Microsoft. I'm not bashing on MS, Windows is a great platform, it's just that there are many other companies out there that were doing better work at the time, Microsoft just did the best job bullying their way into dominating the market. Apple may be a bully using the courts, but Microsoft directly threatened and pushed around numerous tech companies in the field. Things like threatening to pull or raise the price of licenses if vendors sold computers without Windows or with other operating systems, big difference.

Forget the Mac, the Amiga and NeXT platforms were almost a decade ahead of anything else out there in the early 90s, and ridiculously far ahead of Windows 3.1. Some people argue that Microsoft held back operating systems a decade with their technology, but they also did the right thing by running on generic x86 hardware. Right approach with inferior technology it seems. It eventually caught up in the end.

quote: A letter?

Yeah, one I hope you read, the one where the head of Windows outlines everything Apple does right in their execution and that Microsoft needs to be doing as well. The thing is that those values never changed, they carried through their other products as well. About Microsoft Allchin said "I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn’t translate onto great products", and sadly the people at the top are still not getting this in the same way that other companies are.

quote: Windows didn't reach parity with the 1984 MacOS for an additional six years with the release of Windows 3.0.

To be fair to Microsoft, that was due to a licensing agreement they made with Apple. Microsoft agreed to not develop certain functionality into Windows in return for being allowed to develop software for the Mac.

When Microsoft released Windows 3, Apple tried to sue them copying their patented look and feel (this current spate of lawsuits is nothing new) and the judge threw out some 200 Apple patents as invalid, allowing Microsoft to continue to develop Windows beyond its original, limited form.

quote: Before 2007 Apple was a failed proprietary PC company who never amounted to anything more than a fad.

Depends on how you look at it. Another way is to see Apple as the great survivor and the only alternative OS maker besides Microsoft that survived for four decades and made profits for almost all those four decades.

quote: Ah and the whole "copied" argument is something only Apple trolls have been using for 30 years

What Micosoft did was worse. They bought QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) for $50,000 and then licensed it to IBM as MSDOS and it was MSDOS which took over the world and it was MSDOS upon which Microsoft built Windows. The myth is that Windows beat Mac but the reality is worse, it was MSDOS (which was just Quick and Dirty Operating System with a different name) that beat the Mac. What allowed the mac to be beaten was the fact that Apple was being run by bozos after Jobs was ejected from the company.

It is crazy how different the world might have been if IBM went with CP/M as they were initially going to, except for failed negotiations over licensing. It is the reason why they went to Microsoft, incredible how pivotal that was.

Microsoft would have still been making software for Apple hardware, what I wonder is if they would have had a foot in the door for operating systems without MS-DOS on IBM hardware. Windows wasn't a real OS until 1990. MS-DOS sustained them in the mean time, and it kept the door open for when MS-DOS was eventually replaced by Windows.

quote: iTunes iPod iPhone iPad. Remove them tomorrow and it wouldn't make a difference. No Bill Gates? We might as well be cavemen smashing rocks together.

This is cute considering that Gates' company started off by writing software for the existing Apple II and the Mac (which his company then spent the next six years making a copy of their own). Popular computing would have happened with or without him, or any number of companies out there, he was just the most ruthless businessman of the bunch. Personal computing is certainly owed much more to Wozniak.

Finding first big success seems to be a good measure of "starting out" for me. Does the incorporation date work better for you? It doesn't change the point.

Everybody knows that Microsoft wrote software for the Altair, but they didn't really start to make money until they started writing applications for the Apple II, and then MS-DOS for IBM hardware and Mac software following that. They were probably the largest Mac developer until they started going into operating systems.

How does them writing for the Altair change the core argument? It doesn't, it is arguing semantics.

quote: The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products,[2] designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and introduced in 1977 .

quote: Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 , Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s, followed by the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems.

How can you even say this stuff and think you can get away with it. You're completely rewriting history.

quote: Popular computing would have happened with or without him

We can't know that. Before Microsoft OEM's like Apple and IBM wanted to sell PC's with proprietary software that were not compatible with other brands. By making software, not bundled hardware, the standard in computing Microsoft changed the game forever. Windows was the driver of the computer revolution. I'm sorry you cannot accept that the most significant advancement in computing technology came from someone you claim had a "lack of vision".

quote: Learn your history.

LOL I have, not sure what "history" you're talking about seeing as how you flat out made stuff up.

quote: We can't know that. Before Microsoft OEM's like Apple and IBM wanted to sell PC's with proprietary software that were not compatible with other brands. By making software, not bundled hardware, the standard in computing Microsoft changed the game forever. Windows was the driver of the computer revolution. I'm sorry you cannot accept that the most significant advancement in computing technology came from someone you claim had a "lack of vision".

Indeed that was MS big 'business' innovation. And of course this lead to an entire world of others. Innovation and vision are not exclusive. To say the B.Gates was not innovative is a bit of a stretch. But to be fair he was far better at business acumen and execution then predicting and steering the future. Watch the All Things D video of Steve and Bill on stage together from a couple of years ago. It is telling. Also read Bill's book "The Road Ahead" and look at the world as it is now. Bill was a great business leader and had the vision to build a great American company. Ultimately I would bet he personally is remembered for his philanthropy far more the how exactly he made his billions.

Oh and indeed MS was founded to write software for the Altair. But from about 77' until their famous DOS deal in 81' their Apple II software was a HUGE part if not the largest part of their business.

quote: But to be fair he was far better at business acumen and execution then predicting and steering the future. Watch the All Things D video of Steve and Bill on stage together from a couple of years ago. It is telling. Also read Bill's book "The Road Ahead" and look at the world as it is now. Bill was a great business leader and had the vision to build a great American company. Ultimately I would bet he personally is remembered for his philanthropy far more the how exactly he made his billions.

Oh and indeed MS was founded to write software for the Altair. But from about 77' until their famous DOS deal in 81' their Apple II software was a HUGE part if not the largest part of their business.

My points exactly, thank you. He was a great businessman. His vision for the future was secondary and often incorrect, which again is why Microsoft operates the way that it does, breaking into existing markets rather than defining them themselves.

quote: Watch the All Things D video of Steve and Bill on stage together from a couple of years ago. It is telling.

I watched over it again. The difference in terms of how straightforward, cogent, and accurate Jobs was over Gates is pretty crazy. For years Gates has been talking about projectors on every wall in people's houses, pie in the sky ideas that have no bearing on practical reality.

What he is talking about here foretells popular adoption of the cloud (over a decade later) as well as coming wireless communication appliances like smartphones and tablets that take advantage of it. This foresight was converted to products that are generating billions of dollars. This foresight and the ability to manifest it is again in stark contrast with the conservative and relatively rudderless mentality of Microsoft (again with the exception of putting Metro into Windows 8, a ballsy move). Microsoft's strengths are following the path of other companies and then using their dominant market position to allow them to catch up. It happened with operating systems, game consoles, PMPs, and now smartphones and tablets.

Carving out a new path isn't their core strength, but it doesn't really need to be either, they are still a profitable company that makes good products.

The man had no more clear tech vision than Gates, nice try. Again, until 2001 with the iPod, Apple had never had a singular product of any kind that excelled the Microsoft equivalent. Unless his vision was to get absolutely dominated for 25+ years in market share, profits, and tech influence.

Your argument is biased and absurd, so is all the so-called "supporting evidence". Jobs had crazy ideas too. So what? Some of the things we take for granted today were ones pretty "crazy" ideas.

It just seems like you'll say anything to disparage what Gates has done for the tech industry. Not surprising given your unapologetic deity-like adoration for all things Apple.

Because Apple didn't, you know, get permission to view the technology and use it as inspiration in exchange for stock. And Xerox definitely wasn't planning on shelving the technology. In reality, it amounted to a "sale" of sorts of IP, although it was just the inspiration being sold.

There's also the fact that Xerox actually shipped a product years before the release of the Mac, and that Apple completely revamped the UI when developing the Mac. My Windows 7 and OS X desktops can still be traced directly back to the 1984 MacOS. The Xerox UI might as well have come from a different planet, it shares so little in common with modern desktops.